Exposure Assessment of Microbiological Hazards in Food: Microbiological Risk Assessment Series, No. 7 »

UNAIDS

Exposure assessment is one of the four steps of microbiological risk assessment, which include hazard identification, exposure assessment, hazard characterization and risk characterization. It provides an estimation of the likely intake of a microbiological hazard in a specific food or a range of foods. It can be undertaken qualitatively or quantitatively and ideally will also provide information on the actual amount of hazard consumed.

This volume provides guidelines for the exposure assessment of microbiological hazards in food. It outlines the principles of exposure assessment as well as the data needed and approaches available for carrying out exposure assessment. The guidelines also address the issues of uncertainty, variability, quality and communication as they relate to exposure assessment.

This volume and others in this Microbiological Risk Assessment Series contain information that is useful to both risk assessors and risk managers, including international scientific committees, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, governments and food regulatory agencies, scientists, food producers and industries and other people or institutions with an interest in the area of microbiological hazards in foods, their impact on human health and food trade and their control.

1 Introduction 1

2 The Process of Exposure Assessment 5

3 Modelling Approaches 11

4 Data for Exposure Assessment 35

5 Variability, Uncertainty and Sensitivity 57

6 Assuring Exposure Assessment Quality 63

7 Communication in Exposure Assessment 67

8 Using the Guidelines 69

9 References Cited 71

Appendix 1 Example of a Qualitative Exposure Assessment 77

Appendix 2 Potential Data Sources 85

Appendix 3 Terminology 87

Appendix 4 Probability Distributions and Stochastic Processes 89